Refrigerator cabinets

ABSTRACT

A refrigerator cabinet having walls of a sandwich construction formed by an inner lining, an outer surface and an insulating body of foamed polyurethane plastic formed in situ therebetween. Channel-shaped breaker strips surround the opening of the cabinet and seal an edge of the insulation. The breaker strips are provided with a pair of ribs along the legs of the channel, and spacer means are arranged between the inner lining and outer surface when placed within the breaker strip so as to keep them spaced apart and properly located during the fabrication of the sandwich construction.

1 Umte States Patent 1 3,632,011

[72] Inventor Joshua Wilson Kitson 3,174,642 3/1965 Loewenthal et al. 220/9 F Huntingdon, England 3,335,904 8/1967 Anderson 220/ I 5 X [21] Appl. No. 4,197 3,489,477 1/1970 Harder, Jr. 220/14 [22] Flled 1970 Primary ExaminerLloyd L. King [45] Patented 1972 Attorney-Frank R Trifari [73] Assignee U.S. Philips Corporation New York, N.Y.

ABSTRACT: A refrigerator cabinet having walls of a sandwich construction formed by an inner lining, an outer surface [54] ggf i Q and an insulating body of foamed polyurethane plastic formed aims rawmg in situ therebetween. Channel-shaped breaker strips surround [52] US. Cl 220/9 F, the opening of the cabinet and seal an edge of the insulation. 220/14, 220/15 The breaker strips are provided with a pair of ribs along the [51] Int. Cl B6Sd 25/18 legs of the channel, and spacer means are arranged between [50] Field of Search.

- 22 /9 the inner lining and outer surface when placed within the 10, 9 F, 14, I5; 62/DIG. l3, DIG. 3 breaker strip so as to keep them spaced apart and properly located during the fabrication of the sandwich construction.

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,461,096 2/1949 Wagner 220/15 PATENTEDJAN 4:872

JOSHUA WILSOII KITSOII ATTORNEYS REFRIGERATOR CABINETS This invention relates to refrigerator cabinets. It relates specifically to a refrigerator cabinet of the kind having an insulating body of a foamed plastics material which is formed in situ between two surface layers. One type of plastics material that has been used for this purpose is a polyurethane foam.

The surface layers on either side of the foam insulation are usually arranged to terminate on an open side of the cabinet at a place where a refrigerator door can be fitted. The edge of the insulation at the open side of the cabinet is usually covered by means of a rigid breaker strip which forms a suitable surrounding for the opening and may include means for supporting a door and possibly for holding the door closed. The surface layers for the foam insulation must be retained within the breaker strip for the foaming process and if the cabinet is intended to be manufactured in quantity it is necessary for this part of the assembly operation to be capable of being carried out quickly and accurately. To provide a way of holding the surface layers within the breaker strip this can include a pair of raised ribs at each side to support both an inner and an outer surface layer. If these ribs are too closely positioned together it may sometimes be difiicult to insert an edge of a surface layer between them. If they are further apart there is likely to be a leakage of the liquid plastics foam material round the edge of the surface layer during the foaming operation. To facilitate the assembly operation it might be more convenient to have ribs that are suitably wide apart and then provide some additional means such as a rubber sealing gasket or the application of an adhesive tape along the outer edge of a rib to provide the necessary sealing.

The provision of separate means to effect sealing in this way however adds to the overall cost of the cabinet since it increases the amount of work needing to be effected manually in the assembly operation.

The present invention provides a breaker strip of simple construction with provision for holding a surface layer therein and effecting a seal at an edge of the layer.

According to the invention, a refrigerator cabinet includes a plastic foam insulating body which is formed in situ between inner and outer surface layers, in which prior to introduction of the foam, an edge of a layer is supported with respect to a rib of a breaker strip by means of a resilient spacer located between said layers. A single resilient spacer may be arranged to support the edges of both the surface layers.

Preferably the breaker strip includes two raised ribs towards at least one of which the layer edge is pressed by the resilient spacer. The resilient spacer may be a strip of flat rigid material which is bent along its longitudinal axis such as a strip of plastics material, for example a rigid polyvinyl chloride sheet material.

By way of example, embodiments of the invention will be further described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which,

FIGS. 1 and 2 are front and side views respectively of one model of domestic refrigerator cabinet according to the invention,

FIG. 3 is a resilient spacer for a breaker strip,

FIG. 4 is a view of a breaker strip assembly for forming a door frame of a different type of refrigerator cabinet,

FIG. 5 is a part cross-sectional view along the line V-V on FIG. 4 after the foaming operation has been carried out, and

FIG. 6 is a similar view to FIG. 5 showing one method of how the breaker strip was provided with a slot for receiving a refrigerator cabinet finishing panel.

FIGS. 1 and 2 are front and side views respectively of a domestic refrigerator cabinet constructed in accordance with the invention. The refrigerator cabinet comprises an inner lin ing 12 made from a plastics material in the form of a thin sheet, an outer cabinet 13 made from cardboard which was laminated with aluminum foil on its external surface, sections of breaker strip 15, elongated steel reinforcements 16 and plastics foam insulation material 7. The plastics foam insulation material 7 was produced by inserting a suitable liquid foaming compound which would expand in situ between the inner lining l2 and the outer container 13 and which would solidify to form a strong and lightweight construction for the cabinet.

The sections of breaker strip I5 were lengths of a Ushaped rolled steel section which will be described in further detail hereinafter.

An additional steel reinforcement 31 which is shown more clearly in FIG. 2 was also included to help stiffen the back comer of the refrigerator cabinet. This reinforcement acted also as a mounting bracket for enabling a plate carrying a refrigerator cooling unit to be suitably fixed and it also enabled a firm base for the refrigerator cabinet to be provided.

While it might be sufficient for some purposes for the reinforcement pieces to be fixed just by being embedded in the plastics foam material, it is preferable if more positive means are provided for holding the reinforcement pieces to the breaker strip. One example of such means is by use of the locking medium disclosed copending application, Ser. No. 4,199 filed concurrently herewith. This specification also discloses how an assembly of breaker strips for forming a rectangular door opening to a refrigerator cabinet may be readily fabricated and the reinforcement pieces may then act additionally to provide strong joints between adjoining sections of the breaker strip.

For the sake of clarity in these drawings, FIGS. 1 and 2 show no means for holding the inner lining 12 and the outer container 13 to the breaker strip sections 15 for the foaming operation and how this is done will be explained in connection with FIGS. 3 and 4 which show respectively a resilient spacer for a breaker strip and an enlarged view of a breaker strip assembly for a refrigerator cabinet of slightly differing design.

FIG. 4 shows four breaker strips 15 which were arranged on a Hat surface in a rectangular formation so that they would be suitable for fonning a door frame of a refrigerator cabinet. The breaker strips 15 were then joined together at the corners of the frame in any suitable manner and steel reinforcements 16 were included for improving the rigidity of the eventual cabinet construction. Resilient spacers 37 which are shown in greater detail in the enlarged view of FIG. 3 were then placed in the channels of the breaker strips. Each spacer was a strip of rigid polyvinyl chloride plastics material sheet which was perforated by means of holes 38 at intervals along its length.

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line V-V on FIG. 4 which shows more clearly the manner in which the resilient spacer was fitted into the breaker strip. The breaker strip in this instance was a rolled steel section bent into the form of a U-shaped channel and which was covered on its outside surface with a polyvinyl chloride plastics film. The raised edges of the channel section were also bent inwards to form ribs having a double thickness of the steel and leaving a small gap 56 at each inside comer of the channel section. To insert each resilient spacer 37 this was first bent along its length by hand and then formed a semicircular shape which was sprung into the channel section of the breaker strip 15 with the long edged of the resilient spacer located close to the inside corners of the breaker strip. The particular form of domestic refrigerator cabinet constructed for this embodiment had an inner lining 41 made from a polystyrene sheet material by a vacuumforming operation and an outer container 42 made from cardboard to which aluminum foil had been laminated on an outside surface thereof. To assemble the components for the cabinet, the inner lining 41 was first located over the frame of breaker strips and the open edge of the inner lining was then pushed between the inner breaker strip rib and the edge of the resilient spacer so that the open edge of the inner lining became firmly locked into the breaker strip frame. The open edge of the outer container 42 was similarly pushed between the raised rib of the breaker strip and the resilient spacer so that this too became firmly locked in the breaker strip frame.

When the liquid for forming the foam insulation material was poured between the inner lining 41 and the outer container 42 of the construction the liquid plastics material quickly formed a foam structure between the two surface layers, the resulting foam filling the space between the two layers and then setting so that a rigid structure for the cabinet was produced. The foam adhered strongly to the inner walls of the inner lining and the outer container and penetrated through the holes 38 of the resilient spacer 37 so that the inner surface of the breaker strip was also wetted by the foam. When the foam became set to a solid body all these parts were thus rigidly joined together and the incorporation therein of the steel reinforcement 16 ensured that a rigid refrigerator cabinet construction was achieved.

There was little tendency for the foam to leak out along the edge of the breaker strip where this was supported by the resilient spacers 37 because the spacers provided a seal as well as a means for holding the surface layers in place.

In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 4 the resilient spacer 37 is shown as only occupying a small part of the total length of the breaker strip. This is done for the sake of clarity in the drawing but it is clear that if necessary the resilient spacer could be made to extend the whole length of each breaker strip. If desired, the resilient spacer 37 might additionally be secured to the breaker strip by means such as use of the locking medium disclosed in my aforementioned copending patent application.

if it is required for the refrigerator cabinet to include means for attaching a separate finishing panel to the cabinet, such as shown and disclosed in copending application Ser. No. 4,194, filed concurrently herewith, then the breaker strip may conveniently be provided with an extended slot for receiving an edge of the finishing panel. One way in which this can be effected quite readily is depicted in the cross-sectional view of FIG. 6. In this construction, after the outer container 42 has been inserted into the breaker strip 15, a suitable spacer member 21 is pushed between the outer container 42 and the raised rib of the breaker strip 15. After the operation of inserting the foaming plastics material has been carried out and the foam has set to a solid body holding the inner and outer surface layers and the breaker strip together, the spacer member 21 may be removed from the breaker strip. Removal of this spacer member will thus create a long slot along the length of the breaker strip which will be suitable for receiving an edge of a finishing panel if this should be required.

The foregoing descriptions of embodiments of the invention have been given by way of example only and a number of modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the invention. For instance it is not essential that the breaker strip should be made of a steel section which is coated on the outside surface with a polyvinyl chloride film. A breaker strip of this construction can be produced of a particularly attractive appearance since the polyvinyl chloride film can be made in a form having a wood grain or other decorative finish, bit it is clear that breaker strips of other materials could be used such as a breaker strip of an extruded polyvinyl chloride plastics section. A breaker strip of an extruded plastics section might include an insert of a paramagnetic material if desired eventually to use a magnetic door gasket on the refrigerator cabinet.

What is claimed is:

l. A refrigerator cabinet comprising an inner lining, an outer surface, and an insulating body of foamed plastic material formed in situ between the inner lining and outer surface thereby forming a sandwich construction having the shape of an open container, at breaker strip arranged along the edges of the sandwich construction about the opening so as to provide a means for properly aligning and locating the inner lining and outer surface during fabrication of the sandwich construction, a pair of raised ribs formed on said breaker strip located along the edges thereof, and a resilient spacer member arranged so as to urge the inner lining and outer surface toward one of the ribs of said breaker strip for supporting the inner lining and outer surface therein.

2. The refrigerator cabinet according to claim 1 wherein sand resilient spacer is a strip of flat rigid material bent about its lon 'tudinal axis.

3. Tfie refrigerator cabinet according to claim 1 wherein the strip of rigid material forming said resilient spacer is perforated along its length.

4. The refrigerator cabinet according to claim 3 wherein said resilient spacer is formed of a plastic material in the form of a rigid sheet. 

1. A refrigerator cabinet comprising an inner lining, an outer surface, and an insulating body of foamed plastic material formed in situ between the inner lining and outer surface thereby forming a sandwich construction having the shape of an open container, a breaker strip arranged along the edges of the sandwich construction about the opening so as to provide a means for properly aligning and locating the inner lining and outer surface during fabrication of the sandwich construction, a pair of raised ribs formed on said breaker strip located along the edges thereof, and a resilient spacer member arranged so as to urge the inner lining and outer surface toward one of the ribs of said breaker strip for supporting the inner lining and outer surface therein.
 2. The refrigerator cabinet according to claim 1 wherein said resilient spacer is a strip of flat rigid material bent about its longitudinal axis.
 3. The refrigerator cabinet according to claim 1 wherein the strip of rigid material forming said resilient spacer is perforated along its length.
 4. The refrigerator cabinet according to claim 3 wherein said resilient spacer is formed of a plastic material in the form of a rigid sheet. 